hard drives Archives - Rick's Daily Tips

Q&A: Is it safe (and wise) to span two hard drives to make one larger drive?

Posted on June 22, 2025

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Question from Carl: I read here that you can “span” (i.e. combine) multiple hard drives and use them as one large drive and access them all with a single drive letter.

I have a used, but working 1TB hard drive at home that I could install in my Windows 11 desktop computer to span with the 1TB drive that’s already in it to effectively give me a 2TB drive. (There is an open drive bay to install the second drive.)

Would you mind answering a question about drive spanning for me? [Read more…]

Q&A: Will photos stored on an unused hard drive last forever?

Posted on July 22, 2024

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Question from Stella: I have thousands of family pictures that I’ve copied onto an external hard drive, which I keep locked up in a fireproof lock box.

My question is will those pictures last forever or is their lifetime limited in any way?

[Read more…]

Q&A: Why do drive letters start with ‘C’ on Windows PCs?

Posted on June 28, 2024

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Question from Brittney: I have a question I’ve been wanting the answer to for a long time and nobody seems to know the answer.

Now that I’ve found this site I’ll ask you.

I’ve noticed that the drive letters in computers always start with “C” and go up from there?

There doesn’t seem to be an “A” drive or a “B” drive. Can you tell me why that is? [Read more…]

3 reasons why you need an external USB hard drive

Posted on August 14, 2023

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External hard drives used to be expensive luxuries that transferred data between the PC and the drive at a relative snail’s pace.

But thankfully, that has all changed thanks to the proliferation of incredibly fast, yet very inexpensive external USB hard drives.

In fact, prices have now dropped to where you can pick one up starting at around $50.

I now believe that every computer user should own at least one external USB hard drive, for the following reasons: [Read more…]

Q&A: Will a new SSD work in an older computer?

Posted on August 7, 2021

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Question from Richard: Hi, Rick. I hope you can answer a question for me.

I have an older Gateway desktop PC running Ubuntu Linux. The hard drive died and I want to replace it with a solid state drive (SSD).

My cousin is offering to sell me an unused 1TB SSD for about half what I’d have to pay for a new one. He bought it a while back but he no longer needs it because the computer he was going to put it in died.

My question is will this drive work in my computer? I’m asking because the old hard drive had a SATA II interface and the SSD I’m thinking about buying is SATA III. [Read more…]